Third Sunday After Pentecost – 13th June 2021 – Year B

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 4^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark: Verses 26 – 34:

²⁶ He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

³⁰ He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

³³ With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

 

Today is one of those days when a sermon seems almost counter-productive.  Why?  Well…the words of Jesus in our Gospel lesson are quite simple and easy to understand.  This is basic teachings.  Mostly everyone has heard and knows the parables of sowing seed and the tiny mustard seeds growing into the grandest and largest plants in all the garden, and to mostly everyone the words are self-explanatory.  And even if you are unfamiliar with these parables, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to “crack the code” and decipher a fairly obvious meaning.  Sow the seed of God’s Word!  It’s all so simple.  A sermon almost seems unnecessary, like we’re just “gilding the lily.”

But…in saying that…. All too often we come at these parables from a very methodical, practical perspective.  Basically, we tend to look only as far as the “how to” being taught but we never get to the “why.” WHY did Jesus teach these parables?  You see, the real lesson to be learned here is found in the reason for Christ’s teaching; not in the method that is taught.

Why did Jesus teach this lesson to His disciples; His followers?  If we look to the parallel accounts recorded for us in Matthew and Luke, we find that the ministry of Jesus was — not surprisingly —under a lot of scrutiny and persecution.  Many people were following Jesus, but many more doubted.  Many more were out to silence Him, mock Him, discredit Him, and even harm Him.  In fact, last week’s Biblical account of Jesus’ own mother and brothers and sisters—His own family—trying to lay hands on Him and silence Him and to take Him home, as if He had a mental illness, bringing great shame upon the family with His behaviour, immediately precedes these parables.  Basically, we hear of Jesus’ own family trying to shut Him up and discredit Him, and then Jesus immediately begins to teach His disciples these lessons about the reign and rule of God and how God works.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  You see, the disciples of Jesus had witnessed a lot of things happening with Jesus’ ministry, and not all of it was good (at least by worldly standards).  In fact, there were many times that Jesus seemed like a rather unloving extremist who was concerned more about right doctrine and practice than He was with establishing relationships and friendships and building up numbers.  There were more than a few occasions that people turned and walked away from Jesus because they didn’t like what He was teaching; they didn’t like what they heard (e.g., the rich young ruler, the crowd of disciples who turned back and no longer walked with Jesus after hearing His teaching on the Bread of Life).  Jesus wasn’t matching up with what they wanted, expected, and demanded, so they took their business elsewhere.  If the customer is always right, then there were more than a few times that Jesus was bad for business.

And it wasn’t just this “bad for business” reality that was alarming the remaining disciples.  There was also the fact that following Jesus could prove hazardous to your health.  John the Baptist certainly found this out the hard way, as would all the apostles.  And don’t think it went unnoticed that Jesus was public enemy number one with the religious elite.  Those were men you just didn’t want to cross.  If you got on the wrong side of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, you could expect a high degree of misery in your immediate or short term future.  You see, there’s nothing new under the sun.  People have always tried to avoid conflict and be liked by everyone in the room.  That’s just human nature.  No one likes to be disliked, and yet faithfully following Jesus will make you disliked by a lot of people. 

There’s also the fact that following Jesus wasn’t exactly a fast-track to all the finer things in life.  In fact, following Jesus often put one lower than the animals in terms of finer things and luxuries.  “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” “Take nothing for your journey; no staff, no moneybag, no bread, no money, and do not have two tunics.” “If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” So faithfully following Jesus wasn’t exactly the world’s perfect picture of success, which is why many of His own disciples would doubt and despair and turn and walk away.  It’s all bad for business.

Now, I know at this point that it’s rather easy for us to look down upon those “disciples” who turned away from Christ when things didn’t go the way they planned.  After all, we would never do that, would we?  And yet…we do.  We do it all the time.  Just think about how often we try to “help Jesus out” when things aren’t working out the way we anticipated or hoped for.  Just think about how often we try to build a better churchly mousetrap.  You know, every generation of Christians since Christ walked this earth has worried that the Church will die out with them because the younger generations aren’t showing up and packing the pews.  This is when all kinds of interesting stuff gets introduced in the name of “mission” or “church growth.” It’s happened for centuries.  Faithful Word and Sacrament ministry gets put on the back-burner (or forsaken altogether) in favour of the newest gimmicks and marketing ploys and business models, all geared at winning market-share and specific demographics and more money and more people.  We turn our Lord’s Divine Service to us into something that we hope will appeal to the masses, essentially changing God to suit the consumer, rather than letting God change the consumer to suit Him.

Dear friends: This is the reason why Jesus taught these parables.  This is the reason why He still teaches these same parables to us this very day.  In a very real way Jesus is teaching us to stay the course—His course.  He has given us His means of grace as the seed that grows His kingdom.  “Go and make disciples of all nations….” How?  By sowing His seed; that is, by baptising and teaching ALL that He has commanded and taught.  His Word and His Sacraments give life.  New life sprouts forth from these seeds of divine grace, and ONLY from these seeds of His divine grace.  How?  Like the farmer who scatters seeds, he knows not how they sprout and grow.  He just knows that what he sows sprouts and grows.  And the littlest, most unassuming seeds that our Lord plants in us (and gives to us to sow) sprout and spring forth life and peace in the grandest fashion and scale, just like the little mustard seed that grows to become the largest of all the garden plants.

Look no further than right here to your Lord’s feast table.  Look to the very unassuming and scant elements of bread and wine.  Look no further than the baptismal font and the few drops of ordinary water that wet your brow so long ago.  Look no further than this pulpit, this lectern, and this book.  Look no further than the words of absolution you heard and received earlier in this Divine Service.  In all these mere things—these little unassuming mustard seeds—Almighty God is at work, working miraculous, mighty, life-giving, life-saving deeds.  These simple mustard seeds, freely sown with no strings attached—no caveats or conditions—spring forth and produce the fruits of everlasting life.  

Nothing else can do that!  There is nothing else that the world can offer that can produce these fruits and this rich harvest of life, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and peace.  We can try and sow other seeds.  People have been doing it for centuries.  We can try and grow God-pleasing wheat all we want, but if we’re not sowing His seed, all we’re going to find is a crop of weeds (tares) sprouting up.  We can try to doctor up the seeds that God gives us, as if we’re going to improve upon the Master Gardener’s design.  We can try…and we will fail.

This is the reason our Lord teaches this lesson.  Yes—we are called and taught to freely sow the Gospel seeds God gives us.  I will never deny that core teaching of these parables.  But as I said, there’s a very good and Godly reason our Lord teaches us these lessons.  Believe it or not, He does know all that we’re experiencing in this fallen and sinful world.  He does know how His Church is suffering and struggling in the midst of a culture and a people who despise Him, and His means of grace and His holy bride—the Church.  He does know all the things that are eating at us and causing us to doubt, despair, and worry.  He also knows how we tend to respond and behave when life gets tough and things start looking bleak; how we tend to panic and flail about like a person drowning; how we, like our first parents, willingly reach out and sample the goods that the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh hold out to us; how we tend to look elsewhere for the things we think we need to allay our worries and satisfy our desires and give us our version of “peace.” He knows…and He cares.  He loves us and cares for us so much that He still cries out to us and teaches us that He’s got it all covered and under control.  I know it may sound unusual, but these parables of Jesus are just a different way for our Lord to cry out to us in the midst of the storms of life, “Fear not!  Fear not, for it is I, and I am with you always!  Trust in Me above all things.  I’ve got it all in my control.”

I will say it again because it bears repeating, and the ears of faith never tire of hearing the sweet words of the Gospel: Look here at what our Lord and Saviour is sowing, planting, and growing in our midst.  Look at these amazing, yet unassuming mustard seed means of grace…and rejoice!  Here is Christ!  Here is the Master Gardener at work in our life, bestowing upon us His super-abundant harvest of peace that surpasses all human understanding.  Look to and embrace the eternal and unconditional grace given to us in Holy Baptism.  Look to and embrace the mighty life-giving, life-saving Gospel promise in, with, and under the ordinary and unassuming mustard seeds of word, water, bread and wine; the life-giving, life-saving Gospel that sows and produces the fruits of complete forgiveness, everlasting life, and God’s inexhaustible grace, mercy, and peace to all who believe.

In the words of the champion of the Reformation, Dr. Martin Luther, “Here I stand.  I can do no other.” In the same way, Here we stand as the ones who have been called by Christ to freely sow His seeds of grace.  We can do no other, and by His grace we will do no other.  

By the boundless grace of our Triune God,  may we ever and always trust in God above all things, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and may we ever and always take shelter in the mustard seed of the bloody cross of Christ; that cruciform mustard seed that, recognised through the eyes and ears of saving faith, gives unconditional and abundant shelter and sustenance and peace to all who hear and believe. Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

 

Pentecost 2 – 6 June 2021 – Year B

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

 

The text for this meditation is written in the 3^rd Chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark: Verses 20–35:

²⁰ Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” 

²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” ²³ And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, thatkingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. ²⁷ But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he 

first binds the strongman.  Then indeed he may plunder his house.

²⁸ “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies theyutter, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is 

guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰ for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” 

³¹ And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. ³² And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” ³³ And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

If someone asked me to list the top 100 books that should be on every Christian’s reading list, many of the works of Clive Staples Lewis would make the top half of that list.  Clive Staples Lewis who is commonly known as C.S. Lewis had the great skill of being able to write for many different audiences.  His Chronicles of Narnia series is just right for pre-teens who enjoy fantasy.  His space trilogy is interesting for the fan of science fiction. Mere Christianity and the Problem of Pain help answer some of the hard questions of Christianity.  The Screwtape Letters are an examination of the different strategies that the devil uses to attack our faith.

 

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote a passage that describes the situation in today’s Gospel.  He wrote:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”

 

In today’s Gospel text we just heard, it began: ^{(Mark 3:20–21)} “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” Here, the members of His own household believe that He is a lunatic — ‘on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg’.  Jesus’ family was concerned that Jesus was getting overworked.  Since many in His own family did not yet understand what it meant that He was the Messiah, they thought He was having some kind of nervous breakdown or something.  They desperately wanted to get Him out of the public eye and some place quieter, so He could recover.

 

After Mark records the response of His family. He records the response of the scribes: ^{(Mark 3:22)} “The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” The scribes labelled Jesus as the Devil of Hell.  

 

Now, the scribes were not wrong to check on Jesus.  During a trial in the book of Acts a man named Gamaliel said, ^{(Acts 5:36–37)} “Before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. ³⁷After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.” Apparently, there were other men who gathered a following and claimed to be the Messiah.  The religious leaders in Jerusalem were only being faithful to their calling when they sent representatives to gather facts about Jesus or any other popular teacher.  The problem is not that Jerusalem sent a fact-finding mission out to learn about Jesus.  The problem was with their findings.

 

Their findings made no sense.  The Gospel according to Mark does not give the exact number of demons that Jesus drove out of people, but the impression is that the number is big.  If Jesus were really possessed, that would make no sense.  It would be like a football player running the wrong way on the field and scoring for the wrong team.  Jesus Himself told them how silly their conclusions were. ^{(Mark 3:23–26)}  “He called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end”. During Jesus’ ministry, He called the devil and his demons liars, murderers, evil, and so forth, but He never says they are stupid.  The devil and his demons present a united front against God and everyone He loves.  There is no way that a man who drives demons out of people is an ally of those demons.  In fact, He is the demons’ enemy.

 

Jesus then went on to illustrate what was really happening.  He continued His parable and said, ^{(Mark 3:27)} “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” The “strong man” in the parable is Satan.  Satan owns the people who have demons.  They are his goods.  Jesus, then, is the stronger man who binds Satan and plunders his goods.  Jesus liberates those whom Satan has bound.

 

The plan to bind the devil and free his slaves is very old.  Long ago, in Eden, before He took up our human flesh, this same Son of God made a promise to the devil.  ^{(Genesis 3:14–15)} “The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” In today’s Gospel, we heard how this same Lord God is divinely born of a woman and took on human flesh in order to bruise the head of the serpent.

 

The bruising that He spoke of in Eden and the binding that He spoke of in the parable are one and the same thing.  It is victory over sin, death, and the power of the devil.  This bruising and binding did not take place with laser lights and fireworks.  Jesus first did what Adam could not do.  He endured the temptation of the devil, but did not sin.  He lived a perfect life.  Then, even though He was innocent, He took up the sin of the world.  ^{(2 Corinthians 5:21)} “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. He endured false trials, cruel physical and emotional abuse, and ultimately death on a cross.  While He hung on that cross, He endured the righteous wrath of God against the sin that He carried … the sin of the entire world.  This He would do for us to bind the strong man, Satan, and free us from our sin.

 

We know that Jesus’ victory over sin, death, and the devil is complete because the grave was not able to hold Him.  He rose from the dead and proclaimed His victory.  He appeared alive to hundreds of people who testify to His resurrection.

 

How complete is this victory?  Jesus said, ^{(Mark 3:28)} “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.” These words teach us that the victory is unconditional.  This victory covers every sin of every person in every time and place.  The range of forgiveness is unlimited.

 

There is one and only one exception to this gracious gift. ^{(Mark 3:29)} “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” To understand the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it is important to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation.  The Holy Spirit is there to create faith in a person and deliver the forgiveness of sins to that faith.  When a person rejects the work of the Holy Spirit, they are rejecting the very forgiveness that He wants to give to them.  Christ earned the forgiveness of sins for them on the cross.  It belongs to them, but they do not have it because they reject it.  They reject the work of the Holy Spirit and so reject the forgiveness that He offers.  This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

 

The devil, the world, and our own sinful nature want us to reject the work of the Holy Spirit.  They want us to believe that we are spiritual orphans.  But Christ has bound Satan.  He has freed us from the shackles of sin.  We are a member of His family. How can we not ‘accept the view that He was and is God’. Amen

 

The grace and love of our Great triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

 

 

Holy Trinity Sunday – 30 May 2021 – Year B

Grace to you and peace from God our father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen 

The text for our meditation is written in the 3^rd Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 3:1 – 17:

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

⁹ “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

 

 

Today is the festival of the Holy Trinity.  In some ways, this festival is sort of odd.  If we look at the other major festivals of the Church Year, they tend to be the commemoration of an event … Christmas: the birth of Jesus; Good Friday: the crucifixion of Jesus; Easter: the resurrection of Jesus; Ascension Day: The Ascension of Jesus; Pentecost: the special revelation of the Holy Spirit that we celebrated last week.  All these days commemorate events.  The festival of the Holy Trinity does not commemorate an event.  It commemorates a characteristic of God as He reveals Himself in His word.

Furthermore, the Holy Trinity is odd as well.  It is a divine mystery.  It is not like the mystery in a crime drama.  At the end of a crime drama, the detective explains everything, and the mystery is solved.  In the mystery of the Holy Trinity, you can study everything the Bible says … you can read all the great theologians of the church … you can memorise very last scrap of information on the topic … in the end, you will still say, “I don’t get it.” It is a mystery that is above and beyond the capacity of our mortal minds.

We just said the Athanasian Creed.  This creed, albeit a bit antiquated in language, does an excellent job of expressing the mystery of the Triune God.  When you are dealing with God the Father, you are dealing with all of God, not just part of God.  The same is true of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  In order for this to make sense to our finite minds, this requires three gods, but there are not three gods.  There is only one God.

It should not surprise us that there are things about God that are mysteries.  We human beings live under the rules of God’s creation.  The creation that God made for us places limits on us.  God, on the other hand, reigns over His creation.  He has no limits.  The fact that God has mysteries that we cannot understand should be a source of comfort.  A god that is totally understandable is not much of a god.

We encounter the Trinity immediately in Genesis chapter one.  In verse one, we hear about God the Creator.  In verse two, we hear about God the Spirit.  In verse three, we hear about God the Word, through Whom God created all things.  At the beginning of John’s account of the Gospel, we learn more about these three persons.  ^{(John 1:14)} “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Here, John identifies the Word, through Whom God created all things as the only-begotten Son of God the Father.

The account of Jesus’ baptism records an appearance of the Trinity: ^{(Matthew 3:16–17)} “When Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; ¹⁷and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” As the Spirit of God rested on Jesus, God the Father identified Jesus as God the Son.

When Jesus instituted Holy Baptism, He used the name of the Trinity: ^{(Matthew 28:19–20)} “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” It is in the name God gives us at our baptism that we receive His service and live our lives.

In today’s Gospel, we heard a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.  There is much to learn in this conversation.  On this festival of the Holy Trinity, we can learn how the Triune God works to give us salvation.

As Jesus taught Nicodemus about the work of the Holy Spirit, He said, ^{(John 3:5–8)} “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” With these words, Jesus teaches Nicodemus and us that it is the Holy Spirit who brings us into God’s Kingdom.  We cannot enter under our own power.  The combination of the Word, the water and Spirit points to Holy Baptism as the way the Holy Spirit calls people to the faith.  The comparison between the wind and the Holy Spirit teaches that the Holy Spirit has His own time table for when and where He brings people into the Kingdom of God.  We do not enter the Kingdom of God at a time of our own choosing, but when and where it pleases the Holy Spirit.

As Jesus taught Nicodemus about His own work, He said, ^{(John 3:13–15)} “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” With these words, Jesus teaches that although He calls Himself the Son of Man, He is from heaven.  As the one from heaven who took on human flesh, a crucifixion squad will lift Him up on the cross just as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness.  By this sacrifice, all who believe in Him will have eternal life.

At the end of today’s reading, Jesus taught Nicodemus about the work of God the Father and said, ^{(John 3:16–17)} “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” With these words, Jesus teaches that, salvation has its source in God the Father.  It is God’s love that sent His beloved Son to save the world.

Jesus taught Nicodemus that all human beings are born of the flesh.  This means that we are all conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own.  We would be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation.  But the Father of all mercy and grace has sent His Son Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sin of the whole world that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Nicodemus struggled with this teaching.  The natural person, (that’s us), the one born of the flesh, (that’s us), looks to the impossible task of fulfilling God’s law for salvation.  Just like the Arians I spoke of and the Jehovah Witnesses, and a few other denominations that call themselves Christian, they search for salvation in their own works.  We live in a culture with a ‘work ethic’ (well mostly anyway), if you want to get anywhere in life, you have to knuckle down and work for it.

But, Jesus spoke for the prophets and for Himself and said, ^{(John 3:11)} “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.”

 You see we are constantly exposed to ‘two kingdoms’ right here on earth. The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Earth. The fact is that as Christians, we live in both, our faith is constantly questioned; we are subject to secular laws that are often contrary to our Christian beliefs. The challenge for us is to cling to the Kingdom of Heaven and in trust to abide in God’s abundant love, so that our passage exposed to secularism may be safely guided by the Holy Spirit. 

The testimony of Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets is the same.  God does all the work of saving us.  We resist Jesus until the Holy Spirit blows into our lives and works faith in us.  It is then that we receive the eternal life promised to us by the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

We can give praise to Almighty God that Nicodemus eventually did receive the testimony of God’s Holy Scriptures.  We know that he eventually became a Christian for the account of him in today’s Gospel is not the last time we read of him in Holy Scripture.  We hear of him one last time shortly after Jesus died on the cross. ^{(John 19:38–39)} “After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. ³⁹Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight”. ***It is so interesting that it is a couple of Pharisees who supervise the burial of Jesus in the tomb.

The account of Jesus and Nicodemus can teach us a great deal on this Trinity Sunday.  Jesus taught that God shows His love for us by sending His only begotten Son into the world in order to save the world.  He taught that, like the serpent in the wilderness, the Son would be raised up on a cross in order to save the world from sin.  He taught that the Holy Spirit gives the gifts of salvation to us by giving us a new birth into the family of God.  The struggle of Nicodemus shows us that if we reject the work of any one of the members of the Trinity, we reject them all.  On the other hand, when the Holy Spirit brings us into the family of God by the new birth, we receive all the blessings that our gracious Triune God has for us … including forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  We have indeed been blessed by

God the Father’s grace for
God the Son’s sake through
God the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith. Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune god that is beyond all hum understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen